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© Paramount Pictures & Apple TV+ Martin Scorsese has built a career making films about the evil that men can do. Most of his films focus on toxic males who are greedy, have a propensity for violence and little or no conscience. As they satisfy their bloodlust, they go about their lives untroubled by the evil they visit upon others. Whether it is 19th Century gangs roaming New York's Five Points indulging an urge for sectarian violence, late 20th Century Mafia mobsters  thieving, killing and deceiving each other or deranged psychopaths like Travis Bickle or Max Cady believing they're avenging angels, Scorsese has always been fascinated by the use of violence. © Paramount Pictures & Apple TV+ Most of his films tell us violence has always been a fact of life in his homeland and there is no depth of depravity that those who deploy it will balk at. Scorsese's latest movie 'Killers of the Flower Moon' is an epic examination of an infamous series of racist murde...

© Apple TV+  Sometimes it takes something really simple to ignite a film. In John Carney's 'Flora and Son,' it comes halfway through and it's a Joni Mitchell song. Eve Hewson's Dublin single mum Flora has been asked by her online guitar teacher, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Jeff to listen to a song he's emailed her. A dance music enthusiast, she starts playing a YouTube clip of Mitchell performing 'Both Sides Now' . © Apple TV+  At first only half interested in the song, she goes about clearing plates off the table of the tiny inner city flat that she shares with her teenage son, Oren Kinlan's Max. But as she scrapes food off her plates at the kitchen sink, you see the moment when Joni Mitchell's melody and lyrics start to pierce her heart. Flora stops what she's doing and walks back to the table to watch the link and tears start to well up in her eyes. It's a very John Carney moment. © Apple TV+  The Dubliner's best films have always b...

© Sky Max There's nothing worse that watching good actors flailing around with weak material. That's been the problem with Sky Max's political thriller 'COBRA' for two series. On paper, everything should be tickety-boo. The show boasts a cast with Robert Carlyle in the lead as the unluckiest fictional British Prime Minister ever to walk God's Earth, Robert Sutherland. © Sky Max Victoria Hamilton, David Haig, Richard Dormer, Marsha Thomason, Lucy Cohu, Lisa Palfrey, Richard Pepple and Alexa Davies featured as casfregulars in the previous two seasons. Con O'Neill, Ellie Kendrick, Karan Gill and Andrew Buchan have guested. All of this acting pedigree should bode well. However the show has been a resounding dud. © Sky Max Ben Richards' creation has suffered from characters who are just too broad brush, dialogue that is frozen stiff and storylines that lack any credibility. To make matters worse, it is all delivered earnestly by a cast who seen it be under th...

© Netflix & Indian Paintbrush Wes Anderson's final Roald Dahl adaptation for Netflix is less ' Jackanory ' but much more ' Tales of the Unexpected '. It's one of those stories Dahl liked to concoct for adults, usually with a sting in the tale. Fans of the old ITV 'Tales of the Unexpected' series, repeated daily in the UK at the moment on Sky Arts, will recognise the same traits. But in bringing this morality tale to the screen, Anderson also pulls it off with a panache that the ITV series could only dream of. © Netflix & Indian Paintbrush Dev Patel assumes the role of principal narrator this time in 'Poison', only occasionally handing over his duties to Ralph Fiennes' Dahl who figured in the three other Netflix adaptations of the author's work - ' The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar ,' ' The Swan ' and 'The Ratcatcher'. Patel is Timber Woods, an Englishman in India summoned to the home of an acquaintance, Be...